Leap Year traditions

It only happens every four years: Leap Year. Leap years were introduced over 2,000 years ago with the transition from a Roman calendar to the Julian calendar. Leap years help to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth’s rotations around the sun. Since a day is added to our calendar this year, 2012 will have 366 days rather than the normal 365.

Some interesting traditions and customs have grown up around the Leap year. According to Irish legend, St. Bridget asked St. Patrick to let women do the proposing once every four years. Men would pay a penalty if they refused the marriage proposal; hence this day was sometimes called “Bachelor’s Day.” Leap year is sometimes called “Sadie Hawkins Day” for the comic-strip character in “Li’l Abner.” Sadie was the daughter of early Dogpatch settler Hekzebiah Hawkins and loved to chase men.

In Scotland, it was considered bad luck to be born on Feb. 29. In Greece, it’s considered unlucky to marry during a Leap year and especially on Leap Day.

For leap-day babies, the hard part is how to count their years. The chance of being born on Feb. 29 is 1 in 1,461. Although there are 4 million leap-day babies worldwide, around 200,000 live in the U.S. Some famous leap-day babies include Jimmy Dorsey, Dinah Shore and actor Dennis Farina.

Celebrating a leap year birthday is a fun way to beat growing old. For example, an 84-year-old could honestly say he or she was turning 21. There is even a special society that leapers can join: the Honor society of Leap Year Day Babies.

At any rate, enjoy the extra day this month. It only comes around every four years!

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Blog Author

Robin Smith-Johnson

Robin Smith-Johnson is the newsroom librarian at the Cape Cod Times. Cape Rewind looks at Cape Cod history. Read Full